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But how explain beings by the side of Being, and the variety
of intelligences and of souls, when Being has the unity of
omnipresent identity and not merely that of a species, and when
intellect and soul are likewise numerically one? We certainly
distinguish between the soul of the All and the particular souls.
This seems to conflict with our view which, moreover, for all its
logical necessity, scarcely carries conviction against our mental
reluctance to the notion of unity identically omnipresent. It
would appear more plausible to suppose a partition of the All-the
original remaining undiminished- or, in a more legitimate phrase,
an engendering from the All.
Thus the Authentic would be left self-gathered, while what we
think of as the parts- the separate souls- would come into being
to produce the multiple total of the universe.
But if the Authentic Being is to be kept unattached in order to
remove the difficulty of integral omnipresence, the same
considerations must apply equally to the souls; we would have to
admit that they cannot be integrally omnipresent in the bodies
they are described as occupying; either, soul must be
distributed, part to body's part, or it is lodged entire at some
one point in the body giving forth some of its powers to the
other points; and these very powers, again, present the same
difficulty.
A further objection is that some one spot in the body will hold
the soul, the others no more than a power from it.
Still, how account for the many souls, many intelligences, the
beings by the side of the Being?
No doubt the beings proceed from the Priors in the mode only of
numerical distinction and not as concrete masses, but the
difficulty remains as to how they come to constitute the
plenitude of the material universe.
This explanation by progression does not clear the problem.
We are agreed that diversity within the Authentic depends not
upon spatial separation but sheerly upon differentiation; all
Being, despite this plurality, is a unity still; "Being
neighbours Being"; all holds together; and thus the
Intellectual-Principle [which is Being and the Beings] remains an
integral, multiple by differentiation, not by spatial
distinction.
Soul too? Souls too. That principle distributed over material
masses we hold to be in its own nature incapable of distribution;
the magnitude belongs to the masses; when this soul-principle
enters into them- or rather they into it- it is thought of as
distributable only because, within the discrimination of the
corporeal, the animating force is to be recognised at any and
every point. For soul is not articulated, section of soul to
section of body; there is integral omnipresence manifesting the
unity of that principle, its veritable partlessness.
Now as in soul unity does not debar variety, so with Being and
the Beings; in that order multiplicity does not conflict with
unity. Multiplicity. This is not due to the need of flooding the
universe with life; nor is the extension of the corporeal the
cause of the multiplicity of souls; before body existed, soul was
one and many; the many souls fore-existed in the All not
potentially but each effectively; that one collective soul is no
bar to the variety; the variety does not abrogate the unity; the
souls are apart without partition, present each to all as never
having been set in opposition; they are no more hedged off by
boundaries than are the multiple items of knowledge in one mind;
the one soul so exists as to include all souls; the nature of
such a principle must be utterly free of boundary.
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